Medal of Honor review

View full sizeEA's Medal of Honor puts you in the boots of America's most elite warriors. (EA)

In Medal of Honor, you play as a U.S. "Tier 1 operator," an elite warrior on the front lines in Afghanistan. EA has met controversy for setting the game in the ongoing war and its initial plan to label the enemies in multiplayer as the Taliban. Military officials banned the game from being sold on bases because of that, even though EA relented and renamed the bad guys generically as "Opposing Forces." Medal of Honor is EA's latest effort to challenge Activision's Call of Duty franchise as ruler of the modern military shooter genre.

Hits: The campaign is tense and visceral. Knowing that the game is set on the real front lines, and knowing that actual Tier 1 operators advised the developers on how to make it as realistic as possible takes Medal of Honor to a level of authenticity perhaps never seen before.

EA should be commended for presenting a game set on the real-world battlefield of Afghanistan, rather than a fictional conflict such as in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The realism makes it more relevant. The game's goal is to give players a sample of what our warriors are going through, to create empathy and appreciation for them. In that goal, Medal of Honor is similar to the acclaimed movie "The Hurt Locker." The controversy over Medal of Honor is unfortunate, because the game is vigorously patriotic.

In multiplayer, online players must take turns being the good guys and the bad guys. Does it dishonor our soldiers to call the enemy "the Taliban"? I would ask, does it dishonor our World War II veterans for actors to play Germans in a movie about that war? I think not. Whether the enemy is called "the Taliban" or "Opposing Forces" doesn't make any difference. Everybody knows it's the Taliban, and it's silly to euphemize it as "Op-For."

The controversy highlights the fact the people who aren't gamers often don't understand how games work as entertainment. When you watch a movie, you witness the main character's actions. In a video game like Medal of Honor, you ARE the main character, enacting that role like an actor in a movie. No one mistakes a movie actor playing a villain as a real enemy. Likewise, gamers understand that they are actors in a spontaneous play. Medal of Honor, in depicting the actions of our present-day, frontline troops, should have generated no more controversy than a movie like "The Hurt Locker."

The gameplay mechanics are solid; movement, weapon handling and aiming all feel natural. Melee combat includes not just knives, but tomahawks! I'm a fan of "The Last of the Mohicans," so seeing our warriors wield tomahawks struck me as distinctly American in character.

The campaign adds gameplay variety with some missions that include driving a four-wheeler, which to me wasn't very thrilling, but maybe it adds some realism. A mission that casts you in the role of an Apache helicopter crewman, though, is absolutely fantastic. It is thrilling, and maybe worth a game to itself.

View full sizeOne breathless mission in Medal of Honor puts you in the cockpit of an Apache helicopter. (EA)

Misses: Medal of Honor is bogged down by a useless meta-plot in the cutscenes about a clueless, bureaucratic official in Washington calling the shots, not listening to the soldiers on the ground, and putting their lives at risk. The official is addressed as "general," but he wears a civilian suit instead of a uniform, like a civilian official of the Pentagon. This whole scenario is a tired cliche, and it distracts from the meat of the game. Aren't the missions of Tier 1 operators dramatic enough without casting our own leaders as villains? The whole storyline about the stupid general is a waste of time.

By far, my biggest complaint with Medal of Honor concerns spawn-killing in multiplayer. Medal of Honor is a top-shelf, superb game but for this Achilles' heel, and I almost feel betrayed by Dice because they screwed up this aspect of the game.

I'm not sure if it's because the maps tend to be too small, or because the spawn points are fixed, or because the maps are laid out so that spawn areas are vulnerable to sniping, but there is a ridiculous amount of spawn-killing. Almost as soon as a match starts, the tide swings toward whichever side knows where the spawn areas are, and they corner you there. Then, it's like Omaha Beach, as you get sniped and hit with mortar strikes and artillery (which follow the snipers' kill streaks) as you spawn in. It absolutely saps the multiplayer of fun, and people won't keep playing Medal of Honor online for long unless the developer fixes the problem.

To be fair, I was playing multiplayer over the weekend in a "test environment" before the game launch, and there were less than 200 players online. I like the game so much, I'm going to keep playing in hopes that they address the spawn-killing issue as players pour in after the launch. Surely they can't ignore the problem; I heard other players complaining about it, too, in match after match.

I have a lesser complaint about customization. There isn't much. You can tweak your weapons after a laborious ranking up process, but you can't alter your character's appearance. Moreover, there are no female character models in multiplayer. Even if there are no female Tier 1 operators (and how do we know there aren't?), multiplayer should allow female gamers to cast themselves in that role. Many, many women are soldiers in harm's way, and lots of women play shooters online. They deserve respect and should be able to play as women in the game.

Recommendation: Medal of Honor is fun, and its gameplay is tight and tense. Moreover, it represents a commendable effort by EA to create a game that is relevant to real life, contemporary, honoring our soldiers on today's battlefield. It forthrightly salutes the courage, skill and sacrifice of our elite troops.

I want to give Medal of Honor an A+, but I'm going to dial it back to an A- because of the spawn-killing problem in multiplayer. I want this game to succeed, though, because it pushes boundaries with its real-world scenario. I'm going to keep playing and hope it gets better. If the multiplayer improves, I'll revisit the grade.